How does one envision a “spirit”? Probably not 4 meters high and made of bronze. However, artist Thomas Schütte can obviously imagine spirits being like this. And Julien Deiss, who studies at the renowned Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, loves objects like this by his role model Thomas Schütte. Gerhard Richter, Jörg Immendorf, Sigmar Polke, Andreas Gursky, Joseph Beuys: many world-famous artists from North Rhine-Westphalia have shaped the fine arts and photography in recent decades.

Many wellknown performing artists choose to make North Rhine-Westphalia the centre of their work too, for instance the director and choreographer Pina Bausch, who enjoys international acclaim with her Tanztheater Wuppertal.
Part of the reason the conditions for high-caliber art are so good here is that the audiences are curious and open to new things. In this light, it is not surprising that there are almost 680 museums in North Rhine-Westphalia, among them the distinguished Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Museum Folkwang in Essen.

In addition to this, North Rhine-Westphalia is home to numerous festivals, for instance the RuhrTriennale, which is hosted in some of North Rhine-Westphalia's most impressive industrial monuments. All of this persuaded the international jury that chose Essen, representing the entire Ruhr Area, to be the European Capital of Culture for 2010.